


Lex Talionis

by THRILLHO



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Briefs family shenanigans, Bulma is an understanding wife, F/M, Gravity chamber abuse, He is very bad at pranks, I’m sorry but I have to make Vegeta silly, Maybe Vegeta is inspired by Winston from New Girl, Not Proofread, Out of Character, Pranks and Practical Jokes, Trunks Bulla and Goten are mentioned but do not appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 03:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/THRILLHO/pseuds/THRILLHO
Summary: Companion piece toThe Hat Trick. You don’t need to read that first but I would recommend it.Vegeta has had it with his kids messing with him and now it’s time for retribution.
Relationships: Bulla Briefs/Son Goten, Bulma Briefs/Vegeta, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	Lex Talionis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rogue_1102](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogue_1102/gifts).



> I’m gifting this to rogue_1102 because she liked a throwaway line in my fic and it got some wheels turning in my head. Why would Vegeta pull a prank on his kids? 🤔

“Tee hee,” Bulma squealed. Call her old fashioned but she preferred to learn about Capsule Corps soaring stocks in the newspaper over a cup of coffee. It was a great way to start her morning before mayhem and chaos descended on her. If it wasn’t her kids it was—

“I’VE HAD IT WITH THOSE FUCKING KIDS!”

_Ah, yes,_ Bulma thought as she inhaled the scent of her coffee, savoring the peace it brought her before that tornado came in to wreck everything.

“What did they do now?” Bulma asked and took that first sweet sip. That wasn’t enough to keep from rolling her eyes. It figured the only time Vegeta wanted to talk about their kids was when they did something. “Are they fighting over who ate what again?” She didn’t get it! They had more than enough money to replace anything—and god knew her children weren’t picky—but god forbid someone ate that last dumpling they were saving for later.

“They were,” Vegeta said through gritted teeth. “I put an end to it—”

“Oh no.” Bulma began rubbing her temples. “Somehow I know you made it worse.” It was only in the past few years she was able to put an end to Vegeta’s solution to their children’s petty squabbles. Wincing, she asked, “The thunder dome?”

“Not since you banned it.” Vegeta crossed his arms, appearing calmer than before, but she could still see the trembling of his nerves under the surface. “They’ve been teaming up against me! And today was the last straw. The very last!” As expected, he unleashed the angry ki that even she managed to feel.

“Excuse me, they’re teaming up against you?” That was new to Bulma. The house was quieter than usual but she was so grateful for the peace she didn’t dare question it. 

“Yes! Those brats have found it more amusing to mess with me than each other.” Vegeta slammed his gloved hand on the table getting up close and personal with her face. She didn’t even flinch as he bared his teeth at her. 

Bulma did not notice before but the nearer he was to her, the more she could make out the blue and violet patches blooming on his olive skin. “Vegeta! If you reopened the thunder dome again, you deserved to get beat up!” She couldn’t believe him, siccing their kids on each other to settle arguments through fighting. She could hear his stupid voice in her head, _“Such was the way of Planet Vegeta.”_ “You know, it’s not so much the fighting that upsets me but the fact you took bets. I don’t think it did either of their self-esteem any good to have you place their odds one in favor of the other.”

“It got them in the competitive spirit.”

Bulma let out a heavy sigh. “What did we agree on? That they solve their disputes with words.”

“It wasn’t so much an agreement as you ordered me to follow your lead,” Vegeta mumbled. “But that wasn’t what caused these!” Vegeta rolled up his sleeves and pant legs to show off the plumes of black and blue splotches on his elbows and knees. “First they only left me with left hand gloves and right boots, then replaced my entire wardrobe with those orange gis with Kakarot’s kanji—”

“Wait, that wasn’t your idea? But that was some of the best—”

“SHUT UP!” Vegeta turned bright red. “I’m sure it was the girl’s idea but the boy called Yamcha pretending to be me and signed me up under him to sell those protein shakes—”

“Is that why our storage room is filled with NutriHerbal products? And why Yamcha keeps calling for you?”

“Then they pretended to kill each other and have me discover the bodies—”

“Oh, so that’s why I heard you screaming in anguish the other day.”

“And proceeded to make fun of me for caring.” Vegeta sunk into the seat across from Bulma and huffed. “Today had to be the worst they’ve done. I don’t even know what brought this on!” He pounded his hands on the table again, clenching and unclenching his fists. She didn’t know how much more the poor thing could take—the table not Vegeta. 

“Oh sorry, that was my fault. I told them it was you who eats their leftovers.” Bulma recalled when she had enough of their fighting and fessed up that Vegeta ate the rest of Trunks’ pizza and Bulla’s chicken teriyaki skewers.

“I knew it must have been you behind this!” Vegeta rounded on her, his finger pointed at her in accusation.

“I didn’t know they were going to set off this campaign of terror against you!” She knew her kids were brilliant and mischievous—they were _her_ children, after all—but she didn’t think them coordinated and amicable enough to pull something like this. It made her heart warm to know her two babies were getting along.

“They messed with the wrong man. I will make them pay,” Vegeta vowed from where he sat.

“What could be worse than playing on your emotions?”

Vegeta looked at Bulma with a sharp eye and made his voice gravelier and deeper than usual, “They messed with my gravity chamber.”

“Oh wow,” Bulma said, blinking her surprise. Neither of them seemed interested in engineering and mechanics, then again they could have just broken it. They wouldn’t need brains for that and they certainly wouldn’t have brains if they did that. The only thing she hated more than them fighting was repairing that damn training room and her wrath was worse than Vegeta’s. “What did they do?”

“Your ‘oh so delightful’ children thought it would be funny to reverse the gravity once the chamber fully powered up to catch me unaware and slam me into the ceiling. Once my feet left any surface, the gravity would switch into another unpredictable direction. I was only able to escape by blasting the damn gravity machine.” Vegeta threw up his hands in frustration. “By the way, I’ll need you to fix that.”

“Vegeta!” 

“Not immediately. First, I need help getting back at those brats.” 

Despite his temper, Vegeta was a sweet father in his own way. What drew him to her in the first place was the vulnerability he kept hidden that was out in full force at his lowest moment after Namek. It compelled her to be kinder to him than she had ever been with anyone but it was that and her inner fire that drew him to her. Seeing him now, defeated and broken, reminded her of the old days when she wanted to do nothing more than heal his wounds.

“No,” Bulma said, “First things first. I need to kiss those boo-boos and make them feel better.” He wouldn’t argue with that.

* * *

“I’ve got it!” Vegeta said.

Bulma repaired the gravity chamber and now that the truth was out about who was eating all the leftovers, Vegeta stopped doing it to bide his time for revenge instead. Things had never been more peaceful around Capsule Corp.

“I’ll wait outside their doors and when they come out, I’ll punch them in the face!” Bulma sighed at his announcement; creativity was never her husband’s strong suit.

She had to put her foot down. “No, Vegeta!” Bulma hated to rain on his parade, especially when he looked so proud of his idea. “You know you’ll wimp out at the last minute. Remember when I had to stop you from cutting off your hand when you punched Trunks before that whole Buu debacle?”

Vegeta looked down at his right hand, opening and closing his fist, testing its dexterity. “Yes, I recall,” he said. “You didn’t succeed but good thing you had that senzu bean.” Before huffing and stomping off, he said, “I’ll keep thinking.”

* * *

“I can place strategic cacti around the house and move them around when they’re not looking! They’ll think they’re going mad when they see the plant in a different place than they recalled!”

Bulma didn’t even stop flipping through her magazine. “Not far enough,” she said. “And likely to go unnoticed.”

“Then I’ll burn down their rooms while they’re asleep in their beds!”

Bulma snapped her magazine shut to see Vegeta with a manic look on his face and a shake in his shoulders. “Too far.”

* * *

Bulma had heard a week’s worth of Vegeta’s poor ideas for revenge. She supposed it was to be expected. Growing up in Frieza’s army did not leave a lot of room for playful mischief and all Vegeta’s ideas were either extremely disproportionate or likely to go unnoticed by Trunks and Bulla. While she refused to help him get back at their children, she was on board to give feedback to his ideas.

Today, he had none. Instead, he joined Bulma at the breakfast table with a sinister grin on his face like he did when he got the jump on Goku.

“The solution was in front of me this whole time,” Vegeta said. It was not often that he leaned back in his chair with his back relaxed, molding to the seat, instead of ramrod straight and tense.

Bulma wasn’t sure she liked this news. It might have had something to do with the thumping and snarling she heard earlier. “What did you do?” Bulma narrowed her eyes at him. She was on high alert. Vegeta went for a revenge plan against their children that she didn’t approve of first.

“I switched their capsule cases.” The sinister smirk turned smug as he saw Bulma’s face show approval. “Yes, the girl will be on her way to work and have nothing but what Trunks had in his ‘fun’ case, though I did throw in her birthday present from him too. Won’t she be surprised?”

Bulma gawked open mouthed at him. Everything she knew was unraveling before her. Vegeta came up with a good prank without any of her input!

“And the boy will open his case to find nothing but menstrual products, women’s clothing, makeup, and a few vehicles when he’s out and about trying to amuse himself.”

“Vegeta, that’s actually a good middle ground, enough to inconvenience them but not enough to maim them permanent—”

Bulma was cut off by the sound of that thumping, snarling thing she had been hearing the past week, along with the sound of wood boards shattering and the patter of quick feet making a getaway. In the distance, she heard a scream and the fading barking of an aggressive dog.

“What was that?” Bulma turned to her husband. “That definitely came from Capsule Corp.”

“Plan B.”

* * *

Bulma made him track down and capture the dog he trained to attack his children and find it a good home. He was loath to say goodbye. Vegeta bonded with Sparkles and discovered dog training was as enjoyable as fight training. Sparkles was a good dog but Bulma said his aggression towards Trunks and Bulla was unacceptable and he would probably be happier elsewhere. From the looks of things, she was right. Bulma always was.

What unsettled Vegeta the most, however, was that after the initial annoyance of having to gather all of Trunks’ party stuff back into their capsules, Bulla returned home smiling with her spirit humming in euphoria. 

It would not have bothered him if not for it lasting for days! Bulla would go about her day singing some love song under her breath as she passed him. He tried to talk to her but her mind would be far off, a lazy smile on her face. The worst of it was all the flowers! They were everywhere. Every day, he would run into a new gaudy arrangement. The most ridiculous thing about it was that Bulla put a calling card on each of them as if to make sure he knew it was all her doing.

He found Bulma where she always was in the morning, guzzling down that disgusting concoction, her face obscured by that periodical. “Is Bulla putting up all these flowers to taunt me?” Vegeta said. Noticing she was almost done with her first cup, he programmed another for her and settled across from her, welcoming himself to the fruit bowl Bulma kept filled at the table.

Bulma shut her paper and stared him down with narrowed eyes. He didn’t think it was such a ridiculous question. “Only you would be a big enough of a narcissist to think those flowers are about you,” she said.

“Then why is she making sure I know they’re her flowers? She put her name on all of them!”

“Vegeta, she’s not buying the flowers herself, someone is giving them to her. Those cards are addressed _to_ Bulla.” Bulma pinched the bridge of her nose. She did that a lot when she explained Earth norms. “Haven’t you noticed how much happier she’s been?”

The coffee machine pinged and Vegeta took the opportunity to hide his expression from the woman. What connection was he missing here? He refilled his wife’s mug only to have her read him plain as day. “Flowers denote romantic interest, Vegeta.”

“What?” Vegeta almost dropped the carafe of coffee. “Who is it?” He did not object to his daughter dating but he was skeptical of strangers’ motives. Only a handful of people could hurt her physically, but emotions were something different. That and he doubted anyone on Earth was good enough for her. _If only Cabba wasn’t in a different universe…_

“You know him, like him.” Bulma smirked into her cup of coffee. _Is it Cabba after all?_ “Goten,” she said, killing that dream.

“WHAT?” Vegeta’s legs buckled under the revelation and fell back into his seat, sustenance unappealing now.

“Oh yeah, I heard the story. Your little prank set things in motion. It ruined Bulla’s day enough that Goten made it all better.” Her lips were tight and her shoulders were shaking with repressed laughter. “Imagine the blood of Kakarot and Vegeta converging. You guys can be grandpas together!” Not being able to hold it in anymore, she let out her laughter at his slaw-jawed face.

_Dammit!_ Vegeta clenched his fists at his sides. Bulla one upped him again and got him back better than he could have ever imagined.


End file.
